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RE: In Defense of Hell
I would pose the same question to the professor that I posed to @scalextrix: if there is no afterlife, why do good or evil if there is no present reward or punishment? The thief who is never caught is to be considered fortunate, and the woman who spends her life serving the poor, but dies penniless herself pitied.
All of this is assuming that death is considered negligible. If it is considered an infinite evil, then there is no point to good or evil at all. Timor mortis conturbat me indeed.
In fact nature has zero obligation to satisfy our needs, anguishes and pain, or even pleasures and satisfactions. Nature is neutral regarding our desires and fears. But it does not mean that it is intellectually honest to create things in our minds that make us run away from reality. It is always better to accept that a problem exists and to face it courageously to try to find a real solution to it.
Is nature truly neutral? That is, can one add up all the evil and good that nature provides and come out with a perfect zero? I think that such a result would be more evidence for a Creator than of blind chance. Yet even so, if there is no creator, or at least an amoral one, blaming the uncaught thief is irrational.
Actually, let me ask that question: If this thief declares that his solution to a blind and pitiless nature--namely, the solution of ignoring other people's property rights--is a courageous, real solution, what argument can you make against it? For the purpose of this argument this thief is not and will not be caught. (Suppose he is making it on his deathbed, say.)
If we are talking about Reality, then I would indeed fear Hell and take active steps to avoid it, as no one can escape the consequences of ignoring Reality. I have talked in the hypothetical so far, but the reality of God and the Four Last Things is objective. Is this but an assertion? Of course, but so is the assertion that there is not a Hell.
Of course It can be advantageous for you to thieve in some situations, but it will never be a moral thing to do. We are rational beings and we are able to put ourselves in someone else's position, and understand when we are doing things against his will. Everytime you are doing something against someone else's will, you are being immoral with him, doing evil to him.
And it does not depend on whether you are caught or not, whether you are punished or not for your mistake. One thing is the morality of the act, and another thing is the punishability of the act. For example, children, animals, Indians, mentally ill, all of them can commit immoral acts, but they can never be punished because they are considered inimputable.
Indians can't impute moral acts? Seriously?
The mentally ill can't impute moral acts? Excuse me, I'm mentally ill.
If that's what you actually believe, I don't desire to continue this conversation.
Mentally ill cannot be fully responsible for their actions. Nor children, etc...
The morality and the punishability of an act are two separate and independent things. Not all immoral acts are always punishable.